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In both the Perlesvaus, and the prose Perceval the King has simply 'fallen into languishment, in the first instance, as noted above, on account of the failure of the Quester, in the second as the result of extreme old age.
Probably many modifications were already in his source, but the result so far as his poem is concerned is that he duplicated the character of the Fisher King; he separated both, Father and Son, from the Wasted Land, transferring the responsibility for the woes of Land and Folk to the Quester, who, although his failure might be responsible for their continuance, never had anything to do with their origin.
The incidents of their quest, the agonies wrought by their sight, their mission as inviters of sympathetic interest, and the failure of a hero to achieve a work of succor because of failure to show pity, are all elements in Keltic Quester and Quest stories, which antedate Christianity. Kundry, the loathly damsel and siren, has her prototypes in classic fable and romantic tale.
Mounting her he returned to the main track, proceeded along it until he reached the place beyond the pass where the roads forked; then, selecting that which diverged to the left, he set off at a hard gallop in the direction of Quester Creek.
I'm off to Quester Creek to rouse up the troops. Wi' that Hunky wheeled round an' went off like a runaway streak o' lightnin'. I sent a couple o' shots after him, for I'd took a fancy to Black Polly but them bullets didn't seem to hit somehow."
The Perlesvaus, in its present form, appears to be a later, and more fully developed, treatment of the motif noted in Chretien, i.e., that the misfortunes of King and country are directly due to the Quester himself, and had no antecedent existence; this, I would submit, alters the whole character of the story, and we are at a loss to know what, had the hero put the question on the occasion of his first visit, could possibly have been the result achieved.
Seen from a short distance off on the main track the mountains beyond had a brilliantly blue appearance, and a few hundred yards on the other side of the pass the track forked hence the name. One fork led up to Traitor's Trap, the other to the fort of Quester Creek, an out-post of United States troops for which Hunky Ben was bound with the warning that the Redskins were contemplating mischief.
Regarded first as the direct cause of the wasting of the land, it gradually assumes overwhelming importance, the task of the Quester becomes that of healing the King, the restoration of the land not only falls into the background but the operating cause of its desolation is changed, and finally it disappears from the story altogether.
Here the question is more general in character; it affects the marvels beheld, not the Grail alone; but now the Quester is prepared, and knows what is expected of him.
Thus, taking the extant and recognized forms of the ritual into consideration, we might expect to find that in the earliest, and least contaminated, version of the Grail story the central figure would be dead, and the task of the Quester that of restoring him to life.
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